Settlers of Canaan (My first review!)
Settlers of Canaan is, of course, a Settlers of Cataan copy. Now, I have never played Settlers of Cataan (yet), but I've read the rules online, and know enough about the game to see that the two games are similar, if not the same.
Basically, Settlers of Canaan is one scenario, missing the randomization of Cataan. But the map is very beautiful, and you still get the little cool roads, settlements and cities. The five resources are wool, lumber, ore, clay, and wheat.
The game starts with each player placing 2 settlements and2 roads apiece on the board. A big placement fight often occurs for the one "copper" spot, which allows on a roll of "10" for the adjacent settlements to pick a card of their choice.
Numbers are spread evenly across the board, and there are plenty of good starting positions, so no one really gets shafted. The robber is now the "plague", which still gets put out on a roll of "7", and lets you take a resource randomnly from a player whose settlement is adjacent. It also forces all players to discard half of their resource cards if they have more than 7.
For those who never played a game like this before, the turn sequence goes like this:
1) A player rolls the dice. If he rolls a "7", he places the plague, as above. If he rolls any other number, evey space on the board with that number on it produces the resource shown on it for all neibouring settlements, and 2 of the resource for all neibouring cities. Then the player has a build phase, where he can build roads, settlements, cities, stones of Jerusalem, and cards. Building the longest road can get you 2 victory points. Buying cards sometimes gets you a straight out victory point, while it usuallly gets you a "priest" card. Priest cards allow you to move the plague, and whoever has the most priest cards also gets two victory points. If a settlement is next to the city of David (bottom of the map) they can build a stone of David in the city. Whoever has the most stones also gets 2 victory points. If you don't have a city at the bottom of the map, you can use your roads to connect and pay resources to those whose cities are at the bottom to build stones. Then, each settlement built is 1 victory point, and each city that replaces a settlement is worth 2 victory points. First to 12 victory points is the winner!
The game seems very well balanced and fun. We've played it a dozen times, and there doesn't seem to be many problems with the game (unless the luck - we have all complained about that, and are really considering buying the "Deck of Dice"
All of our ratings are high for the game here in my group - with even women and children loving the game. The only people who don't love it are those who want to kill stuff. (For them, we have Frag!)
Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
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